Typical support structure may be inserted within the pleats of a pleated filter media. However, there may be several disadvantages associated with the support structure being inserted within a plurality of pleats. Support structure that is inserted between pleats have to be sized to fit within each pleat valley of the particular application. Because pleat size and shape may vary between applications, setting up different manufacturing processes and tooling for different products may be laborious and costly. For example, the ends of the typical support structure may have to be different than the remaining portion of the support structure inserted within the pleats. As such the different ends must be manufactured at a specific position relative to the remaining portion and sized to fit each frame opening defined by the filter frame for each application. As such consistent insertion, alignment, attachment between multiple pleats of filter media and/or frame may be difficult.
Thus, there is a need in the art to reduce these process issues with an improved filter media support.